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Cattlemen Resume Call for Beef Irradiation

CANADA - The Canadian Cattlemen’s Association is to call on Health Canada to restart the process to allow irradiation of beef in Canada.

The CCA originally submitted a proposal for irradiation of beef in 1998.

A scientific review was carried out at the time and recommended to Health Canada that the process should be approved,

However, the final steps of the process were not completed.

The CCA said that efforts were made by CCA since then to amend the regulations and now the request for this additional documentation was recently made by Health Canada.

The CAA said the path towards approval in Canada has been a long one, particularly relative to the equivalent US approval process that was completed more than a decade ago.

“However, the history of milk pasteurisation serves as a reminder of the time required for adoption and consumer acceptance of an approach that has ultimately been recognised as a pillar in Canada’s public health system,” the CAA said.

“The first milk pasteuriser in Canada was installed at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) in Toronto in 1908 and three decades later Ontario reportedly became the first large jurisdiction in the world to mandate pasteurisation of milk.”

The CAA said that the recent support of irradiation by the Consumers Association of Canada indicates that the benefits of this technology are starting to be recognised.

Support from the industry, government, the scientific community and the medical profession will be required to support consumer education initiatives.

The arguments advanced by opponents of irradiation today are almost identical to those used at the start of the last century against milk pasteurization.

The benefits of pasteurisation and irradiation are also similar to the extent that some have advocated that the term “cold pasteurised” be used instead of the term “irradiated” on packaging, the CCA said.